Something crazy happened. Out of my last 8 batches of mead and beer 6 came out infected. I am cleaning my equipment with PBW and sanitizing with Starsan. I make my batches in the kitchen (both beer and meads). Using clean tools, always keep at most 3-4 days old bucket with starsan solution, and yet, get every 3 out of 4 batches infected. Does it mean that I got some nasty air bacteria in the air that lands into a …

Situation Never mind the two hop bags that didn't sink, those things are more buoyant than what I gave them credit for. This is the beer in a secondary vessel. I wanted to get it off the yeast cake so I could wash the yeast (after realizing it was 9% ABV, I didn't bother, a bit much for the yeast, I fear). It's been in this bucket for one week today. It doesn't resemble a pellicle that you'd get from …

I am trying to understand the nature of contamination in beer. I find it difficult to imagine (considering there are wild yeasts and moulds and micro-organisms in the air - aren't there?) a scenario where a beer is 100% free of contamination, or is this normally the case with a properly brewed batch? Or is it a case that when contamination is lower than some threshold we don't notice it and that beer is considered to not be contaminated? I …

I pressed apple cider last year and added nothing.... I just left it in 15 liter jugs covered with cheese cloth and paper towel... it smells like alcoholic cider, tastes pretty good, and is dark rich color.... is it safe ?

Recently I brewed two batches of a copycat Christmas Ale. You can ignore the recipe's water adjustments, since I didn't do them. Before fermenting, the wort smelled and tasted perfect - just the right amount of sugar and spice. I figured that it would turn out fantastic (both batches). The first batch sat in the bottle for 2 weeks, and when I tasted I was quite disappointed. It had essentially no spice characteristic in smell or taste, and it had …

My friend recently gave me the idea of making a kombucha-inoculated beer. Having never done it before, the principle seems fairly straightforward to me (this is my own guesswork): Ferment kombucha as normal (done!) Prepare base beer recipe/wort, let it cool Pitch enough kombucha starter to inoculate wort (for my 8L batch, about 1L of starter according to normal kombucha ratios) Let it ferment normally as with any other yeast pitch It seems that this would inoculate the wort with …

Here's my brief story: Bought a Mr. Beer kit and didn't have a clue what I was doing, and out of impatience would squeeze the fermentor to smell the brew, resulting in an infection. I now have cheap, crappy beer that tastes like a hard-miller cider. However, I got addicted to home brewing within 5 minutes and ordered a Deluxe kit from Northern Brewer prior to the crappy batch even finishing, with the 2 glass carboys. That time, I actually …

Producing a variety of different beer styles, we are able make adult friends happy, however children are left out :( I therefore wanted to ask if somebody knows where to look for yeasts that are not producing alcohol, yet ferment a wort? On Wikipedia one can read about this commercial product Bionade (wikipedia), which suggest that some person at a brewery (after claimed years of experimenting) was able to cultivate a mico-organism (not really a yeast but a bacteria) that …

I'm curious if anyone has any information about beers susceptibility to infection over time/stages of fermentation? My understanding is than beer becomes less susceptible over time but I specifically concerned with what it is susceptible to. With this information I feel like one could troubleshoot the stage at which a beer was contaminated better. ex. If a certain bacterial/wild yeast can only propagate enough to contaminate a beer with a minimum residual sugar.

I’m currently creating a batch of mead. I’ve watched a lot of videos about the process. I’ve seen some people do it because they said you need to have it between 3.6 and 3.9 ph. And some just don’t bother and it turns out great. In the first batch i’m making right now i’ve made no changes to the ph level. And of course made sure to sterilize everything beforehand. The biggest part i’m sort of concerned about is, do …

My last two batches have been infected with a bacteria infection. I'm curious what species of bacteria could survive the alcoholic conditions of the brew? The first infected batch appear to have colonies post-bottling, coating the inside of the PET bottles with what appear to have the size and spread of typical Lactobacillus colonies. My second infected batch had a large colony in the area of the Krausen Collar in primary fermentation - seemed to be more shiny and gooey …

Recipes for spontaneous (wild) ginger ale sometimes refer to the starter as the "ginger bug". What is the ginger bug? Is it just an ordinary lactobacillus; is it a type of yeast? Is it something that is all around us, or something that is found specifically on the ginger? What role does the ginger play: is it simply a flavouring agent, does it act as a preservative, or is it something special (for instance, a carrier of important microörganisms that …

I know that in a very general sense, yeast = good, bacteria = bad. But why is this? Do bacteria produce alcohol like yeast? Is yeast a subset of all bacteria, or vice versa?

The other day, I was with my friend getting ready to bottle a batch of modified cream ale (our second homebrew so far). We were using an auto-siphon to transfer beer from fermenter to the bottling kettle, however at some point I had to use only a hose to transfer (don't ask). So I took a mouthful of vodka, gurgled in my throat vigorously, spit out, then pulled on the hose to start pulling the beer out of the fermenter. …

About a month ago, I started making a dairy-free drink with blended fruit (i.e. Strawberries, Raspberries, etc). I'd like to start lacto-fermenting these smoothies but a friend of mine insists that the sugar content is too high and it would be impossible for bacteria to grow in it. Can bacteria (namely Lactobacillus) grow in high concentrations of sugar? If not, why and would the sugar content of my blended fruit be too high to allow bacteria fermentation? Would it be …

My last batch had a thin whitish 'membrane' on top of it and some white spots, visible on the picture bellow. I think I saw something similar on a blog a while ago, attributed to a lactobacilus infection. Taste was not too bad, but the smell was a bit strange, I went ahead and bottled 3 days ago. What is that? Should I be prepared for bottle bombs?

I occasionally use a juicer to make Ginger root juice (which is quite strong) but lately I've also considered lacto-fermenting this juice. Which leads me to my question:How fermentable is juiced Ginger really? I'm aware of how ginger bug is sometimes used to kick start ferments but juiced Ginger is something else entirely. Also, I've read quite a bit about Ginger's antiseptic and antibacterial properties. Wouldn't those same properties render a starter culture useless?

Looking at this video I had the idea of vacuum sealing yeast that I harvest from my beer batches to better protect it from bacteria/mold. My plan is to rinse the yeast with boiled (sanitized) water and store it in that water (so it won't produce CO2). Since I'm not a biologist I'm wondering if that is a good idea, if anyone has done that before and if there are any downsides. In special, I would like to know if …

Context: I am currently working on a batch of jalapeno-cranberry wine. It's been in primary for five days so far and I am beginning to suspect I have flowers in my wine. I was not too concerned earlier this week as I thought it was just residual foam from an active fermentation, but the more time goes by, the more I suspect there is a problem. Problem: When I view the must, it appears as if there are little flecks …

I have made a few batches of beer from those home brew kits sold at Brew n Grow. When I cook the beer, I only am boiling 2.5 gallons instead of the whole 5, per instructions, and then I add the other 2.5 gallons from my tap water. My question is, is they recommend a wort chiller. When I add the 2.5 gallons to get my total of 5 gallons, it naturally cools down the beer because the tap water …